Happy May Day! To kick off Spring and the last 2 months leading up to the release of The Season on July 12th, we’re giving away one SIGNED Advanced Reader Copy of THE SEASON (and a fancy pair of white gloves). To enter simply subscribe to our newsletter in the month of May.

While you’ve got until May 31st to subscribe for this giveaway, the first MONTHLY newsletter (we promise not to spam your inbox!) will go out mid-month and include exclusive content, inside film & book news, and info on another subscriber-only giveaway! And yes, this giveaway is open to international subscribers. Dutch rights have sold. More territories to come!

Sign up below for your chance to win!

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It’s 75 days until The Season’s US release and we’re gearing up for a bunch of fun giveaways in May & June, including signed ARCs & items from Megan’s Debutante Bag. To grease the skids and close out April we’re doing a small, fast RT & follow Twitter giveaway!

The giveaway starts today and ends at midnight on Saturday, 4/30. TEN winners (US & International) will get a The Season Bookmark.

Where a writer writes can be every bit as personal as how a writer writes. Being a writing team we have to accommodate two different styles and preferences.

Stephen likes getting out of the house. He wants to get up, get dressed like it’s a regular job and GO somewhere to write. He also prefers to write standing up, which is super healthy, so he has a swanky VariDesk & an anti-fatigue mat to stand on. He likes to have a nice big pin board behind for ideas, inspiration and plotting. To accommodate all this, we’ve had a small office in town for years.

I prefer to lounge around the house as I write. I think one of the most fabulous things about being a writer in the first place is the ability to do your job in your pajamas! So I stay home. I have a nice desk in the living room where I head first thing in the morning after Stephen & the kids are out for the day. Sometimes I fill an aromatherapy oil diffuser or build a fire in the wood stove. I create an environment that makes me feel happy and comfortable. While I write, I get up for lots of little mini-breaks to putter around the house doing other necessary things like laundry or dinner prep. It’s my thinking time, my stretch my neck out from sitting at the computer time, my noodle an idea time.

Of course, there are definitely times when it helps for us to to be in the same room at the same time. Outlining, revising, copyediting, talking to our agent or editor, etc. During those times, I generally join Stephen at the office.

Across from his desk, we’ve got a nice a couch and coffee table where I can sit with my computer in my lap and be comfortable. This is also where Stephen takes power-naps. I commend my husband on all his healthy writing choices–from the sofa, in my pajamas.

And then there are deadlines.

During a deadline, all our lovely preferences get tossed aside in the name of necessity. We work through the weekends. We work late into the night. We let the kids watch TV and work from bed first thing in the morning. We’ve even worked in the car and on the sidelines of soccer games.

Deadlines remind us that there’s a big difference between what we want and what we need in a writing space. They remind us that while it’s wonderful to have an office in town, and a nice standing desk, an idea board, or the time to putter around the house in your pajamas adding logs to a cozy fire, we don’t really need any of those things in order to get the job done.

All any of us really need in a writing space is something to write with and something to write on.

We’re still 6 months out from the release of The Season so the American Library Association’s Mid-winter meeting and exhibit in Boston this past week was not really on my radar. Imagine my surprise when I noticed a familiar shock of pink tulle in the very back of this picture of Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea display at the Penguin Classroom booth!

I don’t think they actually handed out many copies, it’s still pretty early for us and there are lots of great books being released this winter & spring that are getting the push from Viking & Penguin right now, but who cares! The gears are definitely in motion! And it’s the first time I’ve seen The Season (just the ARC, but still…) out in the world acting like a real book–sitting up straight on the shelf with its best manners on display!

What’s even more amazing than getting little peeks of my book at ALA, is that there are book bloggers & librarians in the world who are aware of TheSeason and admittedly “geeking out” over it! Since I’ve been geeking out over it for more than a year it feels great to finally have a little company.

Everyone looked like they had an amazing time. It’s like a book treasure bath! I can’t help but fantasize about going to the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando in June. We’ll be a month from release and I’ll be ready to party!

One of the most frequently asked questions writers get is “Where do your ideas come from?”

Sometimes they come from our pasts, or from newspaper articles, sometimes they come from our dreams, or an overheard conversation in a waiting room gets us thinking. Sometimes we have absolutely no idea where they came from.

With Away & Back it was just a little pond by our house and some winter visitors.

Miller’s Pond is less than a mile up the road from our house in Teton Valley, Idaho. It’s a beautiful little spot bordering an organic dairy pasture with big fat Geurnsey’s named after the characters in Scooby Doo. We drove past Miller’s Pond on the way to town and back on a regular basis. We immediately noticed the strange flappy, spinning rectangles dangling from the power lines that ran alongside the pond, but we had no idea what they were.

Then one cold, sunny morning in January we passed the pond to find over 30 Trumpeter Swans and cygnets.